“I don’t know, dear. I’m in hell.”
* * *
How, Kind and Forbearing Readers of this great encyclopedia of Psychic Research, better known as The Whiz Bang, pause a moment while Ye Ed relates how Sir Harry Lauder indirectly caused me much embarrassment.
While lunching at the Friars’ Club on my last visit to New York City, I was cordially invited to a big reception at the Hotel Commodore in honor of Sir Harry Lauder, famous Scottish comedian. The momentous night arrived and I donned by “Sunday-go-to-meeting” clothes for the great event. Please try to imagine my chagrin and sheepishness when friends who had called to escort me, very courteously and, I might add, diplomatically informed me that “it was to be a full dress affair.” How in heck could a horny-handed tiller of the soil be expected to possess a dress suit? After thanking my kind auditors in as gracious a manner as possible, I suggested that probably Sir Harry might consider overalls more appropriate for me. Anyway I did not attend the reception. Next day my Friar friends told me about it and I was happily regaled with Scottish humor. The chairman, they said, graciously introduced Lauder as his “closest friend.” Will these jokes on Sir Harry’s thrift never cease?
* * *
During recent pilgrimages that carried me east, west, north and south, I ran across many amusing, although sometimes embarrassing situations. Chief among them was the constantly manifested surprise of newly-found friends that there was actually such a personage, in flesh and blood, as Captain Bilious Billy.
Here is a fair list of the questions usually dished out by new acquaintances:
“Why, I supposed the Whiz Bang was only ‘kidding’ and that ‘Captain Billy’ was merely a book name.”
“And do you really drink that horrid moonshine?”
“Did you have a hired man named Gus?”